Poet Sonya Renee Taylor's Words Of Wisdom For The Class Of 2020

Commencement speeches this year have taken on additional weight as graduates — and many others — try to imagine what the future holds.

In this time of uncertainty, many are looking for words of wisdom to help guide us post-pandemic.

Poet and author Sonya Renee Taylor is no stranger to commencement speeches. She's given many of them over the years, and this year, she's doing it again — virtually from her home in New Zealand.

She says her final message for the class of 2020 is that there are no experts on living.

“I think we want to know it all. There's a comfort in having the answers and feeling like we've got it all figured out,” Taylor says. “And I think once we give ourselves permission to not be experts, to not have it all figured out, to just be part of this wild ride, of being a human alive on this planet, I think there's great freedom in that.”

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Sonya Taylor
The Food Chain: Facing fat hatred

Does it feel uncomfortable calling someone fat because we think there is something bad about fatness? And if so - does that come from a concern about health, or is it something more insidious? Emily Thomas examines how society sees fatness - exploring the idea that we live in an inherently fat-phobic world. We hear from those who say viewing fatness as a health problem alone, obscures some uncomfortable truths about poverty, racism, misogyny and ourselves. What would a less fat-phobic world look like? (Picture: woman sitting on sofa. Credit: Getty Images/BBC) If you would like to get in touch with the team, please email thefoodchain@bbc.co.uk Contributors: Esther D. Rothblum, professor of women's studies, San Diego State University, Sonya Renee Taylor, founder, The Body is Not An Apology Sabrina Strings, associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Irvine Sigrún Daníelsdóttir, project manager for mental health promotion, Iceland Directorate of Health

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Sonya Taylor